Chrome OS saw a good raise too.
OS X(Mac) saw a decrease.
Thanks, Steam Deck.
Most OS statistics come from web usage which is probably pretty minimal for Steam Decks.
It's not so much about browsing on steam decks. It's about the technical improvements Valve has brought to Linux gaming compatibility that has now made full Linux conversion without a Windows dual-boot for gaming (and many other Windows programs) a true reality. Once people don't have to reboot every time they want to start a game they'll stay in Linux full time.
Very true, more of a Thanks Valve :)
I think SteamOS might help a bit, but the driving factor might be that Microsoft decided to ditch much of good hardware on their upgrade path to Windows 11.
Yeah my current PC is only just starting to hit it's (gaming) limits now, still plenty strong for literally any other purpose, but yeah no I'll just build a whole new PC just so I can be forced into an OS I don't want when they stop supporting the one I'm on.
It's a fucking joke, I hate this ride and I want off of it.
I'm only just starting to get comfortable on Linux, I had a crack many years ago but switched back promptly to windows.
Once I'm more comfortable and there's better gaming support I'll make the switch, it's just not quite there yet for me.
I've been distro hopping a bit with my orange pi, I'm glad I didn't dual-boot my desktop as I'm already struggling for storage with these 100+gb games being the norm now.
I don't think my steam library folders have seen more transfers between HDD and SSD ever.
With that said though, I did just order all the parts for a new PC, but that was only because of some good deals and am able to bring a bunch across.
I've got a fair few parts that are still very new or low mileage, or were overspecced for the future and still have many years of viability left.
It seems like a nice one-two punch of Microsoft shitting the bed with Windows 11 at the same time Valve is taking big strides towards making Linux a viable option for gaming. I don’t think you would see this if either happened in isolation.
Now just release the damn thing in Australia so I can buy one from someone other than the shady fb market scalpers.
I just bought a ROG Ally.
There's a lot of stupid stuff written/on you tube about it, but it's great and clearly a notch up on the Steam Deck in most ways.
Were it not so extremely expensive in my currency I'd already be using one. I just spent slightly more than that for a rig that will last me close to 10years. I really want to see more competition in the handheld space, near future is looking promising, but its not there yet.
sorry, best we can do is "lol"
This comment so accurate my heart aches
If Steam Deck counts does ChromeOS count? How about Android?
ChromeOS is "sort of linux" but sandboxed and uses it's own user agent string.
Android is the same way- Technically a Linux kernel. But sandboxed to death and uses a separate agent.
Just an FYI that at this rate it's only going to take another 115 years before Linux has 100% market share.
What if S-curve instead of linear rate?
You mean Linux isn't going to have 200% market share one day?
Shit, I'm starting to think my calculations may have not been totally serious.
I get that, I just like math
Entirely possible if the population dubbles
Market share is usually a curve.
2138, year of the Linux desktop.
Exacting 100years after y2k38
This is the same logic that a right wing ex-president of my country used to criticize the current leftist president while talking about the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
That's for August. And the growth is exponential, not linear.
To a point. Let's be honest it's going to be more like an S-curve since you can't go past 100% market share, and some people will refuse to switch.
And people not wanting to switch is fine imo. Having competition will likely help all OS's get better over time
i mean i'd prefer the competition to be BSD and such, not windows and macos
The critical mass needed to tip the scales is not high. Once Linux has enough market share to matter as a customer base, game studios will switch to developing as cross-platform for it by default, so that they don't lose launch sales. Once this happens, a lot of people won't have any reason to stay on windows anymore as gaming was the only thing holding them back. This will then create a virtuous cycle of users migrating and games (and then apps) switching to it. Along then come hardware vendor supporty and then pre-built PCs and laptops. If the tipping point is reach, the rate of market share gain will be exponential.
The same thing happened with Internet Explorer 6
The only thing that can stop this is outside pressure from software giants like Microsoft through lobbying the Governments, buying out game studios or buying exclusivity, or strong-arming hardware vendors.
steam deck is helping a lot on that front.
MacOS holds a nearly 30% market share and few game developers give a shit about publishing their games on Mac. Why would Linux be any different?
Apple is notorios about being anti-gaming, yet many games support it while not supporting linux. Don't know the actual stats though.
If you throw proton and wine into the mix, Linux is almost as good as Windows in game support
Because linux doesn't have deprecated opengl, doesn't run their own proprietary api for gpu instead of implementing vulkan and last but not least because linux does still have support for 32bit application.
Are you including iPhones in this market share?
Although macOS holds a high market share, it holds a smaller percentage of Steam users than Linux right now. Essentially, there's more people on Linux known to buy games than on Mac (at least on Steam).
Gamers only seem to think that the only reason people have a computer is to game.
You can’t build a gaming mac. Or a mac at all. Apple does seem to have better gaming support than Linux does though. The majority of my steam library has macOS support. Only a couple support Linux.
30%? Wtf is the source
Other than gamers, there's a huge share of enterprise Windows users. And they're not likely to shift OS, because of IT admin issues. Others in this thread have commented on how Apple is struggling to get devs to build native games compared to Windows.
Sure the number of home PC users might decline, one can always hope.
There are also Windows users who rely on niche business applications. Wine isn't great for that sort of software yet. Another big one is the creative industry. While the VFX industry is very Linux-focused, and 3D is very viable, other parts of video production are not. And GIMP needs non-destructive editing before it can even think of competing with Photoshop or Affinity Photo. Inkscape is a viable vector image tool. The many other Adobe programs don't have great alternatives, and if you need to collaborate, that means you all need to switch to a new program. Then there are the retraining costs to consider.
Gamers have the easiest time in switching to Linux. The amount of compromises and sacrifices you need to make in other industries are much greater right now.
However, Adobe is trying to bring some of their programs, like Photoshop, to the web. It's unlikely we'll see stuff like After Effects on the web, but Photoshop, Illustrator, maybe even inDesign could possibly, maybe be there in a few years. Photoshop web is already in beta (though it's garbage). The web continues to be the great equalizer.
I think Krita is a more viable competitor to Photoshop than Gimp at this point... It's also great for pen tablet drawing and arguably superior in that category.
But yeah, video editors are lacking. Kden live is ok (and awesome for the price)
Audio editors are behind too. Audacity is pretty good for 2 track. Bitwig is a great multitrack alternative to Ableton... But Ardour isn't developed enough for a pro studio and I've never seen one that uses Linux. Part of this is poor support for vst plugins developed for Windows, mostly due to their copy protection.
Reaper can go toe-to-toe with any DAW, including Pro Tools.
I work in audio for film and television, and we would all drop Pro Tools and switch to Logic/Nuendo/Studio One/Reaper if Avid didn't have a legacy stranglehold on the Audio Post industry.
I think Krita is a more viable competitor to Photoshop than Gimp at this point… It’s also great for pen tablet drawing and arguably superior in that category.
Absolutely agree it's there for artists. Krita is a very successful project and I hear mainstream artists talk about it often, while not being an artist myself. Well, technically I own a Cintiq...
I haven't been able to get it to work well with PSDs, though, and I find the interface clunky for the sort of image editing I'm doing. I find GIMP easy enough to use, but it unfortunately lacks some crucial features. 3.0 is right around the corner (for real this time), so I'm hopeful. Unfortunately, PSD is a must because of collaboration. GIMP's ingest of PSD is better. But Krita does have non-destructive effects.
What I'm really hoping for is Affinity Photo to work well in Wine. Most people can get it running now but I think it's a little buggy or lacking in performance. I'll have to give that a shot soon.
But yeah, video editors are lacking. Kden live is ok (and awesome for the price)
Kdenlive is definitely the best free software option but the lack of hardware accelerated playback really kills it dead in the water for me. I'm hoping it will improve soon, given the success of the fundraiser. DaVinci Resolve is fantastic but needing to transcode footage if you have H.264/AAC source footage (geh, I know, but some of us do) and being stuck with H.264 hardware encode in the best-case scenario is not great. I found Lightworks was the best option in terms of professional features + workflow. Proprietary, but hey, at least it works really well on Linux.
Audio editors are behind too. Audacity is pretty good for 2 track. Bitwig is a great multitrack alternative to Ableton… But Ardour isn’t developed enough for a pro studio and I’ve never seen one that uses Linux. Part of this is poor support for vst plugins developed for Windows, mostly due to their copy protection.
That's a shame to hear! I don't work with audio on a very professional level, so Audacity is fine for my use cases. It's improved in a significant way since the Muse Group acquisition (mainly non-destructive editing, but plenty of other stuff). I'm also annoyed but unsurprised to hear that DRM has thwarted compatibility yet again.
People are really late to the party but better late then never....
Linux is awesome.
That was me, I switched my desktop and laptop to ubuntu.
Same here. Switched my laptop to Pop!OS + KDE and planning on doing the same with the desktop soon-ish
Haja you beat me to this comment
Is it actually truly the year of the Linux desktop?
Linux desktop has basically become the Be-so-good they-can't-ignore-you man
It helps that Microsoft has been alienating their customers and set high bars for OS upgrades.
This is definitely a major reason. Windows 11 forces TPM 2, random hardware requirements that make no sense, and is objectively a downgrade from windows 10 (like every other windows version always is). Since Windows 10 is two years out from EoL and all major Linux distros have gotten so much better... might as well upgrade while you can still go back to 10 should you need to, before you have to be on Linux or throw out a bunch of otherwise fine computers.
Can confirm. Would probably be maining windows if the workspaces actually… functioned…
Linux gets better and and Windows gets worse.
Meanwhile Macs still cost a God damn fortune and you still can't repair them.
The Linux handheld
Speaking of...Lenovo announced the Legion Go handheld. Can we put Linux on it?
I'll give it 1 hour after launch
I bet someone will leak a prototype and the GitHub will be up and public before it launches. That seems to be the latest trend for people trying to make headlines on tech.
It's very likely. But why buy a Lenovo handheld? They are shit at customer service, they are terrible at updating their software, they preferably don't contribute back to Linux. I have a fabulous Lenovo tablet that was updated once, and the update was shit, a terrible experience, they didn't release the source code to build the required kernel modules for it to be usable. The firmware had to be modded as hell to prevent it to be a very expensive brick.
Not until you can actually choose it. Think if you could in the store see Linux Desktop to buy and to try out.
What if EU forced computer manufactures to install both OS, Windows and Linux Desktop, and you had to choose during the first boot what you want to use.
Trust me, the that will change the numbers, just because of all who picked the wrong one by mistake.
hint: the wrong one is Windows.
Is it for me this year. Both the main and couch gaming rigs are on Linux now. Glad to be free
Partly my fault - I have that page set to auto open on my browser every week
It's ok, I've never been on that site and I changed windows to tumbleweed nearly 2 months ago on my laptop.
Proud to be one of them. I tried to disable the job that runs windows update, they said I don't have permission, so I switched to Ubuntu on every single computer except the one that runs VR games.
As a bonus, as an enthusiast for artificial intelligence stuff, more programs run on Linux than they do on Windows
On the VR PC you may find O&O ShutUp 10. It has a collection of settings for privacy and generally control over your PC that microsoft didn't make really accessible.
Powershell as admin then type
set-service wuauserv -startuptype manual;
stop-service wuauserv
This will disable the windows update service. If you do want to run updates again (and you should do that regularly), just type
start-service wuauserv and use the windows update page in settings.
Linux is still way better though.
Wow, if it keeps going at this rate, it'll be the year of Linux on the desktop (50% share) in 2079.
Idk, mass adoption is usually slow at first, and then gets faster as it goes on.
All the linux fanboys just ejaculated at once
Is Linux actually growing, or are other users simply buying fewer computers because their phones have reduced the need for personal computers?
I didn't crunch the numbers, but as far as I see, most of the linux growth comes from the Steam deck, which runs a Linux OS.
This could also be the reason for the decrease of OSX, because more other, non classical computer, devices are included, which automatically reduces the share of Laptop and PC devices.
So there is a similar percentage of users in the desktop and laptop space as before but more Linux-based handheld systems. Overall market share has become too broad nowadays for at a glance look at percentage of users for each platform as different sectors of systems will have different market share percentages.
I swapped to Linux in the last month. But honestly being able to use my phone as a backup made me not worry about needing a computer right then.
I helped! I installed Linux Mint on 2 of my friends aging laptops.
Seriously considering swapping over to my Linux partition as main and virtualizing the Windows side this weekend. Still need the Windows because well, I make Windows software.
Why do you make Windows software?
Job?
Who has those?
Apparently God's found whole new ways to test him.
🤡
Is this some r/antiwork insanity?
Every hour spent on developing Windows software is completely wasted time of your life. Especially when you understand the importance of GNU/Linux and FOSS. Windows keeps the user enslaved. But most people won't understand that, they don't want to. So all I can reply to that is 🤡
It's fun, they pay me for it, I'm good at it, and I can work entirely from home.
Glad to be part of the trend. Literally just yesterday, I got rid of Windows and installed Pop OS instead.
Nice! I ran Pop OS on my laptop for over a year to get the hang of things before I decided to fully commit.
I've been running Pop OS on desktop for about 2 months or so with minimum problems, transitioning to GIMP from Photoshop has been harder for me than switching to Linux. Eager to learn though.
transitioning to GIMP from Photoshop has been harder for me than switching to Linux.
Same, but Affinity Photo instead of Photoshop.
What took you so long?!
Seriously tho it's always good to see people switch over
I've often dabbled in Linux, mostly dual-booting, but now I'm fully committing. I mostly kept with Windows because Affinity Designer and Photo don't work on Linux, and having quality graphic design software is important to what I do. It just got to the point with Microsoft endlessly advertising to me, changing my defaults, trying to force me to use Edge, and forcing updates that I had enough and even having access to quality graphic design software wasn't enough for me to stay.
I wish librewolf had a toggle for its user agent. The default user agent is windows and you can't change it without extensions
Welp I'm of those "windows" users then 😉
What I want to know is how many people are using Librewolf on Linux. I imagine it isnt't a small number
One of the things i give my privacy up to, representing Linux to make a change.
There are no longer just 5 of us! There are now 6 of us, YES!
Clear victory
wow i didn't expect that would be the case for us lol
Didn't think that the difference would be way lesser in India!
I wonder what unknown is.
After many years of thinking about it i finally gave Linux a try on my main PC and was met with the unfortunate realization that HDR support was non existent for NVIDIA cards and had to switch back to Windows.
HDR will probably be supported in a year or two, so you might want to give it a try again at some point. There's ongoing work to enable HDR.
Thing is there will always be these sorts of features that are initially only supported on Windows as long as Linux is not a priority platform. So there will always be excuses to not switch :(
Yes, and Desktop Linux won't ever be as big as Windows, so long as almost all pc's sold ship with Windows or macOS.
But I feel like the excuses get less and less. Besides mixed DPI, HDR and VR I don't think there's much missing. Obviously there'll always be apps that only run on Windows or Linux, but that's fine.
But you're right. In a few years there'll be a new feature not (yet) supported on Linux. Let's see how long it takes for FSR3 to work on Linux.
Only for Nvidia?
More likely only not for NVIDIA
could you explain what you mean by this thanks :)
Nvidia has been notoriously bad for Linux on the desktop. Linus Tolvalds has commented about their lack of support here and it has gotten better since then but not by much. Nvidia doesn't like to play nice they only do things their way
Nah. Nvidia is still Nvidia, but 2 years ago or so they finally gave up and started supporting GBM and even opened part of their driver stack.
Some things, like hardware encoder are even easier to set up than AMD's counterpart. (Mainly because Nvidia proprietary driver being supported better than AMD's proprietary driver)
Glad to be part of the trend! Recently converted my 12 year old MacBook Pro to Fedora and it's running incredibly well. Have used command line Linux for work for years, but have really been enjoying it with a GUI in a desktop setting.
What's with the big spike in "unknown" at the same time as Windows market share going down a bunch?
I heard rumors that the Indian government switched to some specific Unix like that has accounted for a lot of that, but I have zero experience on the matter aside from someone saying that could be it.
That shouldn't be uknown as its ubuntu based. The previous ones Ive used was debian based. It was pretty much stock with some wallpaper and basic customization. Also in most cases never updated.
Unlikely. Different Indian govt departments use different distributions, but they are usually forks of Debian, Ubuntu or Red Hat.
did they fully adapt into this?
I remember once reading here that there was a bug that made Windows show up as "unknown"
I don't know, buf I remember seeing all of that change had originated from India. So something happened there, I think
Isn't India developing their own Linux-based OS for all of their government's computers to use?
Do you all think that if the market share gets high enough we'll see ports of professional software like autocad or adobe?
Maybe.
The investment vs payoff is all they care about
We would probably have to go way beyond 3%
Ye most definitely
Bricscad runs on linux- a lot of professional work could be moved over, but its the hack'n'patch stuff that's holding a lot of things together that won't work.
Of all devices are steam decks probably no
The revolution is coming!
If I wasn't a noob gamer I'd have no use for Windows. Unfortunately I'm too dumb to figure out how to make games work, even on Mint.
In order of easiness:
Steam (click and play)
Heroic (click and play)
Lutris (search the right game entry, then click and play)
Bottles (gives you access to some game launchers made for Windows)
I suggest to install all of them with Flatpak to avoid messing up your system different with Wine versions, prefixes and whatnot
It takes less than you think. It's not always windows-easy but a little troubleshooting and googling is usually all it takes. The biggest sticking point is anti-cheat, if the kind of games you like require it.
Wine, lutris and steam are your best friends on linux in terms of gaming
For me, the Year of Linux on the Desktop was 2021. There's literally only one computer in the house running Windows anymore, and that's simply to run some of the pro-level software I use for gig work (and so I'll never be entirely rid of it).
Proton's improvements were a big step in transitioning my PC gaming to Linux. There are still a lot of games that won't run on Linux, but... there are so many that do, so I don't feel like I'm missing out.
Curious, but good news. Hopefully it doesn't reverse. We could do with less macs and windows machines.
That is very little and propably due to steam deck.
Which is not a desktop.
That looks like a pretty solid base before microsoft attempts to decommission millions of computers that have many years of useful life left. I wish I could say that's great for me, but more of that hardware is going to end up in local landfills than resold.
At that rate market share will double after about four years. Since it took a hell of a lot more than four years to get to this point then that means that growth is accelerating.
You say that like it's a bug, not a feature.
I don't really want Linux to become the dominant OS. I want Microsoft to release Windows under a free software license. Windows is actually not that bad an OS from a purely technical standpoint.
Of course this won't happen. The day they release it, world will collapse because of the newly discovered vulnerabilities and stuff. Security over obscurity is major player in securities of closed source programs.
They could probably add android and ios tablets to desktop stats
Is this actually Linux gaining any significant new mindshare, or is it just that the use of desktops is in relative decline, and the holdouts are going to be the more linux-inclined?
Are steam decks included in this because Im pretty sure valve has sold a LOT of them.
Doesn't the inclusion of other platforms make Linux mindshare look even better?
I kind of don't want Linux to become mainstream tbh because then corporate enshittification becomes a much more real threat.
That's why you just use a community run distro. Also if the kernel it self gets enshittified then I'm sure there will be a fork someone will make. Heck right now there's the libre kernel that is just the Linux kernel with no proprietary blobs
These corporate interests are the reason it works so good.
If you read into the Linux mailing list, major lifting is done by these companies.
Intel, AMD, Suse, Red Hat to name a few, all they follow are their corporate interests.
Some things just need money to be thrown at, i don't have a problem with benefiting from money of corporations.
It also makes it more accessible for people who are not able or willing to pay.
There are paid distros already out there, but there will always be the option to ignore them.
You cannot enshittify the GPL 🥹
They've already tried. Ever heard of Ubuntu?
Honestly, given that there are many flaws in desktop Linux security, awareness of people about desktop Linux need to be parallel with better security practices : https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.htmlhttps://privsec.dev/posts/linux/linux-insecuritieshttps://privsec.dev/posts/linux/desktop-linux-hardening/
I just hope that when people are more aware of desktop Linux, developers then need to be more aware of security and use available platforms or components with security in mind such as Flatpak, Wayland, MAC, Pipewire,... and kernel developers should have cared more about industry security practices, and please don't give ideological reasons there.
Thanks, Steam Deck.
Most OS statistics come from web usage which is probably pretty minimal for Steam Decks.
It's not so much about browsing on steam decks. It's about the technical improvements Valve has brought to Linux gaming compatibility that has now made full Linux conversion without a Windows dual-boot for gaming (and many other Windows programs) a true reality. Once people don't have to reboot every time they want to start a game they'll stay in Linux full time.
Very true, more of a Thanks Valve :)
I think SteamOS might help a bit, but the driving factor might be that Microsoft decided to ditch much of good hardware on their upgrade path to Windows 11.
Yeah my current PC is only just starting to hit it's (gaming) limits now, still plenty strong for literally any other purpose, but yeah no I'll just build a whole new PC just so I can be forced into an OS I don't want when they stop supporting the one I'm on. It's a fucking joke, I hate this ride and I want off of it.
I'm only just starting to get comfortable on Linux, I had a crack many years ago but switched back promptly to windows. Once I'm more comfortable and there's better gaming support I'll make the switch, it's just not quite there yet for me.
I've been distro hopping a bit with my orange pi, I'm glad I didn't dual-boot my desktop as I'm already struggling for storage with these 100+gb games being the norm now. I don't think my steam library folders have seen more transfers between HDD and SSD ever.
With that said though, I did just order all the parts for a new PC, but that was only because of some good deals and am able to bring a bunch across. I've got a fair few parts that are still very new or low mileage, or were overspecced for the future and still have many years of viability left.
It seems like a nice one-two punch of Microsoft shitting the bed with Windows 11 at the same time Valve is taking big strides towards making Linux a viable option for gaming. I don’t think you would see this if either happened in isolation.
Now just release the damn thing in Australia so I can buy one from someone other than the shady fb market scalpers.
I just bought a ROG Ally.
There's a lot of stupid stuff written/on you tube about it, but it's great and clearly a notch up on the Steam Deck in most ways.
Were it not so extremely expensive in my currency I'd already be using one. I just spent slightly more than that for a rig that will last me close to 10years. I really want to see more competition in the handheld space, near future is looking promising, but its not there yet.
sorry, best we can do is "lol"
This comment so accurate my heart aches
If Steam Deck counts does ChromeOS count? How about Android?
ChromeOS is "sort of linux" but sandboxed and uses it's own user agent string.
Android is the same way- Technically a Linux kernel. But sandboxed to death and uses a separate agent.
Just an FYI that at this rate it's only going to take another 115 years before Linux has 100% market share.
What if S-curve instead of linear rate?
You mean Linux isn't going to have 200% market share one day? Shit, I'm starting to think my calculations may have not been totally serious.
I get that, I just like math
Entirely possible if the population dubbles
Market share is usually a curve.
2138, year of the Linux desktop.
Exacting 100years after y2k38
This is the same logic that a right wing ex-president of my country used to criticize the current leftist president while talking about the COVID-19 vaccination campaign.
That's for August. And the growth is exponential, not linear.
To a point. Let's be honest it's going to be more like an S-curve since you can't go past 100% market share, and some people will refuse to switch.
And people not wanting to switch is fine imo. Having competition will likely help all OS's get better over time
i mean i'd prefer the competition to be BSD and such, not windows and macos
That's fine, there's no rush.
Why would market share increase linearly?
The critical mass needed to tip the scales is not high. Once Linux has enough market share to matter as a customer base, game studios will switch to developing as cross-platform for it by default, so that they don't lose launch sales. Once this happens, a lot of people won't have any reason to stay on windows anymore as gaming was the only thing holding them back. This will then create a virtuous cycle of users migrating and games (and then apps) switching to it. Along then come hardware vendor supporty and then pre-built PCs and laptops. If the tipping point is reach, the rate of market share gain will be exponential.
The same thing happened with Internet Explorer 6
The only thing that can stop this is outside pressure from software giants like Microsoft through lobbying the Governments, buying out game studios or buying exclusivity, or strong-arming hardware vendors.
steam deck is helping a lot on that front.
MacOS holds a nearly 30% market share and few game developers give a shit about publishing their games on Mac. Why would Linux be any different?
Apple is notorios about being anti-gaming, yet many games support it while not supporting linux. Don't know the actual stats though.
If you throw proton and wine into the mix, Linux is almost as good as Windows in game support
Because linux doesn't have deprecated opengl, doesn't run their own proprietary api for gpu instead of implementing vulkan and last but not least because linux does still have support for 32bit application.
Are you including iPhones in this market share?
Although macOS holds a high market share, it holds a smaller percentage of Steam users than Linux right now. Essentially, there's more people on Linux known to buy games than on Mac (at least on Steam).
Gamers only seem to think that the only reason people have a computer is to game.
You can’t build a gaming mac. Or a mac at all. Apple does seem to have better gaming support than Linux does though. The majority of my steam library has macOS support. Only a couple support Linux.
30%? Wtf is the source
Other than gamers, there's a huge share of enterprise Windows users. And they're not likely to shift OS, because of IT admin issues. Others in this thread have commented on how Apple is struggling to get devs to build native games compared to Windows.
Sure the number of home PC users might decline, one can always hope.
There are also Windows users who rely on niche business applications. Wine isn't great for that sort of software yet. Another big one is the creative industry. While the VFX industry is very Linux-focused, and 3D is very viable, other parts of video production are not. And GIMP needs non-destructive editing before it can even think of competing with Photoshop or Affinity Photo. Inkscape is a viable vector image tool. The many other Adobe programs don't have great alternatives, and if you need to collaborate, that means you all need to switch to a new program. Then there are the retraining costs to consider.
Gamers have the easiest time in switching to Linux. The amount of compromises and sacrifices you need to make in other industries are much greater right now.
However, Adobe is trying to bring some of their programs, like Photoshop, to the web. It's unlikely we'll see stuff like After Effects on the web, but Photoshop, Illustrator, maybe even inDesign could possibly, maybe be there in a few years. Photoshop web is already in beta (though it's garbage). The web continues to be the great equalizer.
I think Krita is a more viable competitor to Photoshop than Gimp at this point... It's also great for pen tablet drawing and arguably superior in that category.
But yeah, video editors are lacking. Kden live is ok (and awesome for the price)
Audio editors are behind too. Audacity is pretty good for 2 track. Bitwig is a great multitrack alternative to Ableton... But Ardour isn't developed enough for a pro studio and I've never seen one that uses Linux. Part of this is poor support for vst plugins developed for Windows, mostly due to their copy protection.
Reaper can go toe-to-toe with any DAW, including Pro Tools.
I work in audio for film and television, and we would all drop Pro Tools and switch to Logic/Nuendo/Studio One/Reaper if Avid didn't have a legacy stranglehold on the Audio Post industry.
Absolutely agree it's there for artists. Krita is a very successful project and I hear mainstream artists talk about it often, while not being an artist myself. Well, technically I own a Cintiq...
I haven't been able to get it to work well with PSDs, though, and I find the interface clunky for the sort of image editing I'm doing. I find GIMP easy enough to use, but it unfortunately lacks some crucial features. 3.0 is right around the corner (for real this time), so I'm hopeful. Unfortunately, PSD is a must because of collaboration. GIMP's ingest of PSD is better. But Krita does have non-destructive effects.
What I'm really hoping for is Affinity Photo to work well in Wine. Most people can get it running now but I think it's a little buggy or lacking in performance. I'll have to give that a shot soon.
As it so happens, I've thought about this a lot.
Kdenlive is definitely the best free software option but the lack of hardware accelerated playback really kills it dead in the water for me. I'm hoping it will improve soon, given the success of the fundraiser. DaVinci Resolve is fantastic but needing to transcode footage if you have H.264/AAC source footage (geh, I know, but some of us do) and being stuck with H.264 hardware encode in the best-case scenario is not great. I found Lightworks was the best option in terms of professional features + workflow. Proprietary, but hey, at least it works really well on Linux.
That's a shame to hear! I don't work with audio on a very professional level, so Audacity is fine for my use cases. It's improved in a significant way since the Muse Group acquisition (mainly non-destructive editing, but plenty of other stuff). I'm also annoyed but unsurprised to hear that DRM has thwarted compatibility yet again.
Oh yeah
This is the year
People are really late to the party but better late then never....
Linux is awesome.
That was me, I switched my desktop and laptop to ubuntu.
Same here. Switched my laptop to Pop!OS + KDE and planning on doing the same with the desktop soon-ish
Haja you beat me to this comment
Is it actually truly the year of the Linux desktop?
Linux desktop has basically become the Be-so-good they-can't-ignore-you man
It helps that Microsoft has been alienating their customers and set high bars for OS upgrades.
This is definitely a major reason. Windows 11 forces TPM 2, random hardware requirements that make no sense, and is objectively a downgrade from windows 10 (like every other windows version always is). Since Windows 10 is two years out from EoL and all major Linux distros have gotten so much better... might as well upgrade while you can still go back to 10 should you need to, before you have to be on Linux or throw out a bunch of otherwise fine computers.
Can confirm. Would probably be maining windows if the workspaces actually… functioned…
Linux gets better and and Windows gets worse.
Meanwhile Macs still cost a God damn fortune and you still can't repair them.
The Linux handheld
Speaking of...Lenovo announced the Legion Go handheld. Can we put Linux on it?
I'll give it 1 hour after launch
I bet someone will leak a prototype and the GitHub will be up and public before it launches. That seems to be the latest trend for people trying to make headlines on tech.
It's very likely. But why buy a Lenovo handheld? They are shit at customer service, they are terrible at updating their software, they preferably don't contribute back to Linux. I have a fabulous Lenovo tablet that was updated once, and the update was shit, a terrible experience, they didn't release the source code to build the required kernel modules for it to be usable. The firmware had to be modded as hell to prevent it to be a very expensive brick.
Not until you can actually choose it. Think if you could in the store see Linux Desktop to buy and to try out.
What if EU forced computer manufactures to install both OS, Windows and Linux Desktop, and you had to choose during the first boot what you want to use. Trust me, the that will change the numbers, just because of all who picked the wrong one by mistake.
hint: the wrong one is Windows.
Is it for me this year. Both the main and couch gaming rigs are on Linux now. Glad to be free
Partly my fault - I have that page set to auto open on my browser every week
It's ok, I've never been on that site and I changed windows to tumbleweed nearly 2 months ago on my laptop.
Proud to be one of them. I tried to disable the job that runs windows update, they said I don't have permission, so I switched to Ubuntu on every single computer except the one that runs VR games.
As a bonus, as an enthusiast for artificial intelligence stuff, more programs run on Linux than they do on Windows
On the VR PC you may find O&O ShutUp 10. It has a collection of settings for privacy and generally control over your PC that microsoft didn't make really accessible.
Powershell as admin then type set-service wuauserv -startuptype manual; stop-service wuauserv
This will disable the windows update service. If you do want to run updates again (and you should do that regularly), just type start-service wuauserv and use the windows update page in settings.
Linux is still way better though.
Wow, if it keeps going at this rate, it'll be the year of Linux on the desktop (50% share) in 2079.
Idk, mass adoption is usually slow at first, and then gets faster as it goes on.
All the linux fanboys just ejaculated at once
Is Linux actually growing, or are other users simply buying fewer computers because their phones have reduced the need for personal computers?
I didn't crunch the numbers, but as far as I see, most of the linux growth comes from the Steam deck, which runs a Linux OS.
This could also be the reason for the decrease of OSX, because more other, non classical computer, devices are included, which automatically reduces the share of Laptop and PC devices.
So there is a similar percentage of users in the desktop and laptop space as before but more Linux-based handheld systems. Overall market share has become too broad nowadays for at a glance look at percentage of users for each platform as different sectors of systems will have different market share percentages.
I swapped to Linux in the last month. But honestly being able to use my phone as a backup made me not worry about needing a computer right then.
I helped! I installed Linux Mint on 2 of my friends aging laptops.
Seriously considering swapping over to my Linux partition as main and virtualizing the Windows side this weekend. Still need the Windows because well, I make Windows software.
Why do you make Windows software?
Job?
Who has those?
Apparently God's found whole new ways to test him.
🤡
Is this some r/antiwork insanity?
Every hour spent on developing Windows software is completely wasted time of your life. Especially when you understand the importance of GNU/Linux and FOSS. Windows keeps the user enslaved. But most people won't understand that, they don't want to. So all I can reply to that is 🤡
It's fun, they pay me for it, I'm good at it, and I can work entirely from home.
Glad to be part of the trend. Literally just yesterday, I got rid of Windows and installed Pop OS instead.
Nice! I ran Pop OS on my laptop for over a year to get the hang of things before I decided to fully commit. I've been running Pop OS on desktop for about 2 months or so with minimum problems, transitioning to GIMP from Photoshop has been harder for me than switching to Linux. Eager to learn though.
Same, but Affinity Photo instead of Photoshop.
What took you so long?!
Seriously tho it's always good to see people switch over
I've often dabbled in Linux, mostly dual-booting, but now I'm fully committing. I mostly kept with Windows because Affinity Designer and Photo don't work on Linux, and having quality graphic design software is important to what I do. It just got to the point with Microsoft endlessly advertising to me, changing my defaults, trying to force me to use Edge, and forcing updates that I had enough and even having access to quality graphic design software wasn't enough for me to stay.
I wish librewolf had a toggle for its user agent. The default user agent is windows and you can't change it without extensions
Welp I'm of those "windows" users then 😉
What I want to know is how many people are using Librewolf on Linux. I imagine it isnt't a small number
One of the things i give my privacy up to, representing Linux to make a change.
There are no longer just 5 of us! There are now 6 of us, YES!
Clear victory
wow i didn't expect that would be the case for us lol
Didn't think that the difference would be way lesser in India!
I wonder what unknown is.
After many years of thinking about it i finally gave Linux a try on my main PC and was met with the unfortunate realization that HDR support was non existent for NVIDIA cards and had to switch back to Windows.
HDR will probably be supported in a year or two, so you might want to give it a try again at some point. There's ongoing work to enable HDR.
Thing is there will always be these sorts of features that are initially only supported on Windows as long as Linux is not a priority platform. So there will always be excuses to not switch :(
Yes, and Desktop Linux won't ever be as big as Windows, so long as almost all pc's sold ship with Windows or macOS.
But I feel like the excuses get less and less. Besides mixed DPI, HDR and VR I don't think there's much missing. Obviously there'll always be apps that only run on Windows or Linux, but that's fine.
But you're right. In a few years there'll be a new feature not (yet) supported on Linux. Let's see how long it takes for FSR3 to work on Linux.
Only for Nvidia?
More likely only not for NVIDIA
could you explain what you mean by this thanks :)
Nvidia has been notoriously bad for Linux on the desktop. Linus Tolvalds has commented about their lack of support here and it has gotten better since then but not by much. Nvidia doesn't like to play nice they only do things their way
Nah. Nvidia is still Nvidia, but 2 years ago or so they finally gave up and started supporting GBM and even opened part of their driver stack.
Some things, like hardware encoder are even easier to set up than AMD's counterpart. (Mainly because Nvidia proprietary driver being supported better than AMD's proprietary driver)
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=i2lhwb_OckQ
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
Glad to be part of the trend! Recently converted my 12 year old MacBook Pro to Fedora and it's running incredibly well. Have used command line Linux for work for years, but have really been enjoying it with a GUI in a desktop setting.
What's with the big spike in "unknown" at the same time as Windows market share going down a bunch?
I heard rumors that the Indian government switched to some specific Unix like that has accounted for a lot of that, but I have zero experience on the matter aside from someone saying that could be it.
Link to an article
That shouldn't be uknown as its ubuntu based. The previous ones Ive used was debian based. It was pretty much stock with some wallpaper and basic customization. Also in most cases never updated.
Unlikely. Different Indian govt departments use different distributions, but they are usually forks of Debian, Ubuntu or Red Hat.
did they fully adapt into this?
I remember once reading here that there was a bug that made Windows show up as "unknown"
I don't know, buf I remember seeing all of that change had originated from India. So something happened there, I think
Isn't India developing their own Linux-based OS for all of their government's computers to use?
Do you all think that if the market share gets high enough we'll see ports of professional software like autocad or adobe?
Maybe.
The investment vs payoff is all they care about
We would probably have to go way beyond 3%
Ye most definitely
Bricscad runs on linux- a lot of professional work could be moved over, but its the hack'n'patch stuff that's holding a lot of things together that won't work.
Of all devices are steam decks probably no
The revolution is coming!
If I wasn't a noob gamer I'd have no use for Windows. Unfortunately I'm too dumb to figure out how to make games work, even on Mint.
In order of easiness:
I suggest to install all of them with Flatpak to avoid messing up your system different with Wine versions, prefixes and whatnot
It takes less than you think. It's not always windows-easy but a little troubleshooting and googling is usually all it takes. The biggest sticking point is anti-cheat, if the kind of games you like require it.
Wine, lutris and steam are your best friends on linux in terms of gaming
For me, the Year of Linux on the Desktop was 2021. There's literally only one computer in the house running Windows anymore, and that's simply to run some of the pro-level software I use for gig work (and so I'll never be entirely rid of it).
Proton's improvements were a big step in transitioning my PC gaming to Linux. There are still a lot of games that won't run on Linux, but... there are so many that do, so I don't feel like I'm missing out.
Curious, but good news. Hopefully it doesn't reverse. We could do with less macs and windows machines.
That is very little and propably due to steam deck.
Which is not a desktop.
That looks like a pretty solid base before microsoft attempts to decommission millions of computers that have many years of useful life left. I wish I could say that's great for me, but more of that hardware is going to end up in local landfills than resold.
At that rate market share will double after about four years. Since it took a hell of a lot more than four years to get to this point then that means that growth is accelerating.
You say that like it's a bug, not a feature.
I don't really want Linux to become the dominant OS. I want Microsoft to release Windows under a free software license. Windows is actually not that bad an OS from a purely technical standpoint.
Of course this won't happen. The day they release it, world will collapse because of the newly discovered vulnerabilities and stuff. Security over obscurity is major player in securities of closed source programs.
They could probably add android and ios tablets to desktop stats
Is this actually Linux gaining any significant new mindshare, or is it just that the use of desktops is in relative decline, and the holdouts are going to be the more linux-inclined?
Are steam decks included in this because Im pretty sure valve has sold a LOT of them.
Doesn't the inclusion of other platforms make Linux mindshare look even better?
I kind of don't want Linux to become mainstream tbh because then corporate enshittification becomes a much more real threat.
That's why you just use a community run distro. Also if the kernel it self gets enshittified then I'm sure there will be a fork someone will make. Heck right now there's the libre kernel that is just the Linux kernel with no proprietary blobs
These corporate interests are the reason it works so good. If you read into the Linux mailing list, major lifting is done by these companies.
Intel, AMD, Suse, Red Hat to name a few, all they follow are their corporate interests.
Some things just need money to be thrown at, i don't have a problem with benefiting from money of corporations. It also makes it more accessible for people who are not able or willing to pay.
There are paid distros already out there, but there will always be the option to ignore them.
You cannot enshittify the GPL 🥹
They've already tried. Ever heard of Ubuntu?
Honestly, given that there are many flaws in desktop Linux security, awareness of people about desktop Linux need to be parallel with better security practices : https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/linux.html https://privsec.dev/posts/linux/linux-insecurities https://privsec.dev/posts/linux/desktop-linux-hardening/ I just hope that when people are more aware of desktop Linux, developers then need to be more aware of security and use available platforms or components with security in mind such as Flatpak, Wayland, MAC, Pipewire,... and kernel developers should have cared more about industry security practices, and please don't give ideological reasons there.